Embodiments of the present invention relate generally to methods and systems for providing improved navigation in a user interface and access to search results therein and more particularly to and persisting and retrieving search results through the user interface based on a context for the results.
Search is one of the primary mechanisms for an enterprise application user to get to a particular transaction he is interested in. For example, the user usually starts with entering a search term to get a result set. There are then different possible scenarios on what the user may end up doing with this search result. In some cases, based on the result set summary, the user can look for a transaction of interest and click on it to go a detail page for that transaction. If the user determines that is not the transaction he is looking for, he has to go back to the search results page and click on another row and repeat it until he finds the desired transaction. That is, the user has to go back and forth between the results page and the detail pages. In another case, the user may update a set of transactions by navigating to each one and making changes to each transaction. For example, starting with a search, the user gets a set of results, i.e., transactions to be updated. The user then clicks on the first one, updates the transaction through the detail page, and saves the transaction. He then goes back to the search results page to select the next transaction and repeats the updating processes. Again in this case, the user has to navigate back and forth from the results page leaving his current context. In yet another scenario, the user can perform a search in one particular context of the enterprise application, i.e., related to a particular function of the enterprise application, related to a particular business object, etc. Then the user may leave that context to some other context, e.g., leave a recruiting pr personnel function of the enterprise application to work in an accounting function thereof. Later, the user may return to the initial context and want to continue where he left off with the previous result list. However, the previous results are not saved so, at this point, the user needs to re-do the previous search with the previous search terms to obtain a set of results before continuing.
In the above cases, the user has to flip between pages or screens which results in the user losing context of the current page. Additionally, when leaving a particular context and then returning, the user needs to repeat the search even if he is looking for the same result set as in a previous search in that context. Hence, there is a need for improved methods and systems for persisting and retrieving search results through a user interface based on context.